Andre Vltchek, writer, journalist and film maker, will talk at the Pacific Media Centre about his work in Indonesia and East Africa. He is the maker of the award-winning 2004 documentary Terlena: Breaking of a Nation, a documentary about the effects of the 1965 US-backed coup in Indonesia on the county’s intellectual community. The coup and the ensuing anti-communist purges led to the deaths of up to a million Indonesians and marked the start of the 30-year Suharto dictatorship. Vltchek’s work has focused on disaster and violent conflict from a historical perspective, primarily in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. His most recent docos have been Tumaini (30min, produced by UNESCO for Kenyan national TV about AIDS in Kisumu part of Kenya where there are almost no adult people left - grandmothers are left taking care of infants, for example) and his 8min surreal black humor Chile Between Two Earthquakes programme connecting Chile after an earthquake and tsunami with the right-wing government.
Vltchek also plans to talk about some of his other doco projects in the pipeline, such as Paul Kagame in Rwanda. Vitchek argues the UN case that there were 2 genocides in Rwanda, not just one, and that the West's favorite African President Kagame is co-responsible for about 6 million human lives lost in Congo/DRC (this film is being produced by dePaul University in Chicago and Vltcheck is both director and co-producer). He will also talk about a film project involving New Zealand - and this is why he will be in the country.
In partnership with the Indonesian Human Rights Committee.
When: Thursday, 14 April 2011
Time: 7.15-8.30pm
Where: WT1004 (AUT Tower Building, 2 Rutland St, 10th floor seminar room, next door to the new Pacific Media Centre office)
Map: www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/contact